As American patriots commemorated the 82nd anniversary of the brutal and continent-saving D-Day invasion at Normandy Beach, codenamed Operation Overlord and that saw nearly 10,000 Allied casualties, a resurfaced clip of former president Ronald Reagan delivering a solemn speech upon the hallowed grounds.
In the speech, Reagan recalls the faith of the troops that what they were doing, liberating the European continent from occupation and restoring freedom to the land, while also realizing the troops knew exactly the kind of hell they were in store for. He also recalled a prayer led by Colonel Robert Lee Woolverton, who led the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment out of the famous 101st Airborne Division.
“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beach head or on the next. It was the deep knowledge, and pray God we have not lost it, that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest,” Reagan declared on the French beach.
“You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause, and you were right not to doubt. You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man,” he continued.
“All of you loved liberty, all of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you. The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know, in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4am In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell,” he went on.
“Something else helped the men of D-Day, their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here, that God was an ally in this great cause, and so the night before the invasion, when Colonel Woolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them, Do not bow your heads, but look up, so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we are about to do,” he remarked.
“Also that night General Matthew Ridgway on his cot listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua, I will not fail thee nor forsake thee,” Reagan finished. Watch that timeless speech below:
Featured image: Screen shot from embedded video.